Toyota Says FCEV Will Have 300-Mile Range, Can Power a Home for a Week [2014 CES]

Clifford Atiyeh

Jan 8, 2014

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Toyota says its next hydrogen-powered car will travel 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen and accelerate quicker than the second-generation Prius. The yet-unnamed, Corolla-sized fuel-cell vehicle—the concept on which the production model will be based on is called FCV, and debuted at the Tokyo auto show—will launch in 2015. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Toyota said the production version of the FCV would reach 60 mph in “about 10 seconds” and could power a home for a week when used as a generator.

The brand also said that the cost of building the fuel-cell powertrain and high-pressure tanks, which it is co-developing with BMW, was 95 percent lower than its first hydrogen prototypes introduced to the U.S. back in 2002. Toyota has about 100 prototype fuel-cell vehicles, which have a roughly 440-mile range, running around the world.

A Toyota executive told Automotive News in May that those cars, based on the first-generation Highlander, cost about $1 million each, versus an expected $50,000 for the new model. Initially, the brand’s hydrogen-powered offering will be available exclusively in California, although at what cost, exactly, has yet to be determined.

Senior vice president of Toyota’s American operations Bob Carter said the “foolish quest” of building hydrogen cars would be proved right “because this infrastructure thing is going to happen.” In the bubble that is Southern California, he’s right. California has nine of the nation’s ten public hydrogen stations, nearly all of them clustered in Los Angeles. The state is planning to fund the construction of least 100 new hydrogen filling stations through 2024. For now, however, the rest of the country isn’t following.